Highlights
1.       Getting surrounded by shadow beings and being able to send the elderly 29 and a half year old bard to safety by commanding my fast, ferocious mule Bill—whom the bard was riding on--to skedaddle.

2.       Dancing Bill in general. I played a ranger and my animal companion was awesome.  I rolled well, so I got to choose 6 attributes, and his 2 cunning allowed Dancing Bill to be trained in monster fighting and performance.

3.       When the DM asked at the beginning “you’re in the midst of a battle and you just got splattered with something.  What did you get splattered with?” it sort of opened my eyes to this style of game, where players have a large control of the narrative.  I’m not a stranger to indie rpgs, but I really liked how this was handled in Dungeon World.  If this type of DMing isn’t described in the product, it probably should be.

4.       The Bond system I liked a lot, since it links the PCs together and gives them a history that can be fleshed out.  We probably would have spent more time on this if we’d had another hour or so to game, but even the minimum we did added a fair amount to our characters’ interactions between combats.  It also does this very quickly—a lot of narrative meat is contained in each bond, a lot like how In a Wicked Age has really evocative oracles that contain a lot to work with.  The Bonds are great because they create interesting backstories and connections without sacrificing actual game play time, and they give focus to how the characters interact with each other.  And it seemed like it would be fun to watch them evolve and change as they’re fulfilled in a campaign setting.

5.       Didn’t get a great glimpse of the Perilous Journey mechanics, since I was a ranger and was able to automatically get a 10+ on two of the Roles.  Maybe next time it won’t be that easy.

6.       I really liked the “7-9 is a success but there’s negative consequences” mechanic.  I thought it worked well and ensured interesting negative things could happen without negating the player’s actions completely.  In general, this sort of reactive DMing was interesting to me, where they just suggest a scene and then improvise based on the player’s die rolls. I don’t know if my home group would accept how “loose” it is, though—at least not in a longer, campaign style game.

7.       Also I really liked that when you didn’t succeed, you got an XP.  A really simple mechanic, but really fun, and it lessens the sting of not getting to do something you wanted quite a bit.

8.       No initiative in combat was interesting, and honestly I didn’t even really notice its absence until another player brought it up.  It might have been the DM was good enough to keep me engaged, or that no one player tried to act more than what seemed a fair amount.

9.       I didn’t really get a good look at how monsters worked, but it didn’t seem like we were getting injured very much.  This might have been luck, of course, but the DM showed me a little of the PDF, and it seemed interesting.  I liked how they had “moves” that helped the DM come up with things for them to do if the PC got a 7-9 or lower.

Anyway, I had a really good time and I was wondering if I could get the Beta PDF so I could try it with my home group.